Manual AA

[mtm78]

 

16 minutes ago, Panocek said:

And working as intended.

 

 

 

This.. truth... you... speak...

 

It... makes... you... think...

 

Why.. submarines.. don't... fit.. in.... the.... game

 

But hey, at least we got some 

 

*this end the current patch notes, stay tuned for more!

[Spkr4theDead]

Is there still a free captain respec? If so, should I redo my Atlanta captain?

[Rhineheart_Thor]

7 minutes ago, Spkr4theDead said:

Is there still a free captain respec? If so, should I redo my Atlanta captain?

No Its over Mate

[asalonen]

23 hours ago, Karasu_Hidesuke said:

I'm still confused whether it is worth spending 4 pts on...

The key point is that the skill completely discards the relative damage bonuses to the priority sector. Instead, you get some additional instant damage that is exactly the same regardless of your ship's AA strength.

 

Example #1: A cruiser with solid AA in its tier, the Belfast:

• Without the skill, during 1 minute (just an example, also used below) you can activate priority sector three times, and you put out 3.5 + 3.5 + 3.5 = 10.5 % of instant damage to the squadron. During the three activations of priority sector, you put out a total of 23.4k constant damage to the distance of 3 km (just an example, also used below).
• With the skill, you can activate the priority sector four times (the cycle gets quicker with the skill), so you put out 7.0 + 7.0 + 7.0 + 7.0 = 28.0 % of instant damage to the squadron. In addition, you put out a total of 20.8k constant damage to the distance of 3 km. Your constant damage is lower with the skill, and the additional instant damage is too little to compensate. As an example, a Ranger bomber squadron has a total HP pool of 14.5k, so the increase of instant damage amounts to a theoretical maximum of 2.5k.

Example #2: A battleship with terrible AA in the same tier, the Ashitaka:

• Without the skill, during the two activations of priority sector, you put out a meager total of 1.1k constant damage.
• With the skill, your constant damage is slightly lower 1.0k. The additional instant damage of 2.0k now makes your total AA better.

In short: If your ship has totally worthless AA, the skill makes it a bit better. But it's still totally worthless.

 

If this all sounds too complicated, well it's because it is too complicated. Somebody at WG with an engineering mindset has been over-thinking this, yet not really thinking it through. 

[Spkr4theDead]

How about the active AA? Does that make much of a difference?

[El2aZeR]

26 minutes ago, Spkr4theDead said:

How about the active AA? Does that make much of a difference?

 

In reality? No, because the instant damage is negligible, you still take the same amount of attacks and shoot down the same amount of planes assuming the enemy CV is not a potato.

You should still use it however because chances are extremely high that the enemy CV is a potato.

[Spkr4theDead]

For me, my Atlanta is an AA boat. Seems like they just nerfed AA along with making CVs actually useful.

[BanzaiPiluso]

8 hours ago, asalonen said:

If this all sounds too complicated, well it's because it is too complicated. Somebody at WG with an engineering mindset has been over-thinking this, yet not really thinking it through. 

This. I keep seeing this over and over and over. Keep it simple guys or don't keep it.

 

[Karasu_Browarszky]

9 hours ago, Spkr4theDead said:

For me, my Atlanta is an AA boat. Seems like they just nerfed AA along with making CVs actually useful.

 

If we ever get the missing operations back, I wonder what the implications are for those... on the other hand, remember how every time you take out an AA build ship out in the randoms, there are no CV's around. So, look at the bright side, you get to spend 4 pts on something more on something that makes your ship more versatile.

 

2 hours ago, Winged_Cat_Dormant said:

This. I keep seeing this over and over and over. Keep it simple guys or don't keep it.

 

 

Yeah.. us mathematically challenged would prefer something more 'linear'....

[El2aZeR]

10 hours ago, Spkr4theDead said:

For me, my Atlanta is an AA boat. Seems like they just nerfed AA along with making CVs actually useful.

 

Atlanta AA is terrible nowadays. She hasn't been an AA ship since 0.8.0.

[BorisJohnsonsMistress]

14 hours ago, asalonen said:

Example #1: A cruiser with solid AA in its tier, the Belfast:

• Without the skill, during 1 minute (just an example, also used below) you can activate priority sector three times, and you put out 3.5 + 3.5 + 3.5 = 10.5 % of instant damage to the squadron. During the three activations of priority sector, you put out a total of 23.4k constant damage to the distance of 3 km (just an example, also used below).
• With the skill, you can activate the priority sector only twice (it gets longer with the skill), so you put out 7.0 + 7.0 = 14.0 % of instant damage to the squadron. In addition, you put out a total of 20.8k constant damage to the distance of 3 km. Your constant damage is lower with the skill, and the additional instant damage is too little to compensate. As an example, a Ranger bomber squadron has a total HP pool of 14.5k, so the slight increase of instant damage amounts to a theoretical maximum of 0.5k

This is wrong... with the skill, you can activate the priority sector four times, not twice.  Reinforcement time disappears (10s -> 0s), preparation time increases by 50% (10s -> 15s).  So one burst every 15s instead of every 20s.

[asalonen]

36 minutes ago, Seemydna said:

This is wrong... with the skill, you can activate the priority sector four times, not twice.  Reinforcement time disappears (10s -> 0s), preparation time increases by 50% (10s -> 15s).  So one burst every 15s instead of every 20s.

Ah, good catch! I actually wasn't sure how to interpret the patch notes. I updated my message accordingly.

It doesn't change the outcome a lot, though. The AA in destroyers and cruisers can become somewhat relevant, since they have a faster priority sector cycle (15 seconds). But the AA must be really bad to even consider the skill, and it remains bad with the skill.

[Salzstreuer]

I'm using manual AA on my US dd but since one of the last patches it doesn't seems to work properly. If I activate priority sector it starts directly with the cool down. Without the increased damage. If I'm using a captain without this skill it's workinmg normal. Do i miss something or is this a bug?

[DFens_666]

6 minutes ago, Salzstreuer said:

I'm using manual AA on my US dd but since one of the last patches it doesn't seems to work properly. If I activate priority sector it starts directly with the cool down. Without the increased damage. If I'm using a captain without this skill it's workinmg normal. Do i miss something or is this a bug? 

 

Thats how manual AA works now. You get more instant damage, but no more damage overtime. Basicly useless skill unless your AA DPS is very low. And then its rather questionable to invest 4 points for some crap like that.

[Salzstreuer]

yes but I don't get the increased instant damage it's directly starting the cool down agian (sector is orangish in the hud) I created a bug report ticket just to be sure.

[El2aZeR]

The instant damage is exactly that, instant. It's supposed to go on cd immediately after.

If you see no effect, well, that too is as intended. Because MAA is useless.

[DFens_666]

8 minutes ago, Salzstreuer said:

yes but I don't get the increased instant damage it's directly starting the cool down agian (sector is orangish in the hud) I created a bug report ticket just to be sure.

 

Maybe you hit it too early? Planes are in your AA range right?

[Salzstreuer]

yes but  massive AA doesn't affect the time it takes to charge the priority sector, you should still see the slow increase of the sector in the hud and red numbers poping up when you hit the planes but this is not starting.  The skill should increases the instant damage and the cool down but I just get the increase cool down which start right away. If I'm using a captain without this skill on a prem dd for example it's working fine. I see the sector increase and the red numbers.

Maybe I understand the mechanic worng?

[DFens_666]

15 minutes ago, Salzstreuer said:

yes but  massive AA doesn't affect the time it takes to charge the priority sector, you should still see the slow increase of the sector in the hud and red numbers poping up when you hit the planes but this is not starting.  The skill should increases the instant damage and the cool down but I just get the increase cool down which start right away. If I'm using a captain without this skill on a prem dd for example it's working fine. I see the sector increase and the red numbers.

Maybe I understand the mechanic worng?

 

Guess so.

If you reinforce your sector, 2 things happen:

Your first tick will deal instant % based of the squadron HP. After that, your continous DPS starts to increase till it reaches it maximum for a few seconds. After that, cooldown starts.

 

If you have MAA skill, you will deal MORE instant damage (think it was double), but your DPS doesnt get increased, thus you dont see red numbers.

Just dont take that skill, its totaly useless.

[Salzstreuer]

ah ok so I misunderstood it. Thank you for explaning

[LoveYouTooBuddy]

 

 

Thanks for the link to the article. For some reason I thought you get the 3.5% damage after the green thing fill up, not when you press O

(copy/paste from the site)

Quote

 

Reinforcing the priority AA sector occurs in four phases:

1. Upon activating the priority AA sector, the AA defenses will cause instantaneous damage to enemy squadrons within the ship’s AA defenses action zone, expressed as a percentage of their current HP, and try to shoot down as many aircraft as possible.
2. A phase in which the ship's continuous AA damage within the selected sector gradually increases, during which the efficiency of the opposite sector's AA fire reduces.
3. Having reached maximum efficiency, the reinforced AA sector deals damage to its full extent for a limited period of time.
4. AA sector reinforcement is deactivated. To use AA sector reinforcement once again, you have to wait until the end of the cooldown period, during which the efficiency of the ship’s AA defenses returns to standard values.

 

Quote

Together with the priority AA sector, we’ve also reworked the "Manual Fire Control for AA Armament" Commander skill, which has been renamed to "Massive AA Fire." Now, this skill will increase instantaneous damage while completely neutralizing both the adverse and positive effects of AA sector reinforcement on continuous damage. At the same time, the cooldown period before the next possible activation of the priority AA sector will become longer than for those without this skill. This change will allow ships with weak AA defenses to defend themselves against enemy aviation, and cause significant instantaneous damage when their Commanders have the "Massive AA Fire" skill researched.

It seems this skill is not designed to make make good AA ships stronger, but to help weak AA ships(DDs?). Yeah, good luck with that... no wonder people are not that happy with it.